Margaret Daly

Margaret Daly

Margaret Daly, born April 8, 1911, in St. Louis, Mo., died Oct. 11, 2004, at the Commu nity Health Center in Coldwater, Mich.

From 1933 to 1999, she lived in Doylestown, where she raised her six children. Margaret Daly was a flapper. She drank boot leg gin out of a coffee cup in a speakeasy, danced the Charles ton and the even more scandal ous Black Bottom on the river boats that plied the Mississippi River off St. Louis, shifted gears on a Pierce-Arrow while her date handled pedals and wheel, mixed medicines for a doctor and drove his Hupmobile just as fast as it would go, and to her own mother's shock and dismay, smoked cigarettesthe modern equivalent of the unforgivable sin.

She was also a star student, double-promoted twice, who graduated fifth in her class at Webster Groves High School only a few weeks after her 16th birthday. But she turned down the proposal of the man her mother wanted her to marry, fell for a dreamerwho had the finest, broadest shoulders she had ever seenand married him, on Sept. 4, 1933, at Holy Redeemer Church in St. Louis. They went off to raise silver foxes in the Missouri Ozark Mountains, then to Wisconsin, then to Ohio, to raise the chil dren referred to by their Aunt Clara as "those six hellions."

After her husband was disabled by a stroke, she supported her family by working for a dry cleaner, movie house, department store, poultry plant, and finally at the Babcock and Wilcox boiler factory in Barberton and for 20 years, and five terms as Chippewa Township clerk. She was a member of Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church and the Altar Society. She crocheted and generously donated her handmade items.

She now joins her husband, John Ralph Daly, and their son, Daniel Arthur Daly and his wife, Barbara. She leaves her daugh ter, Dorothy Cherry; four sons, John Ralph, William Thomas, Robert James, and Thomas Patrick Daly; 10 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren; and friends, both in Doylestown and elsewhere on the circuits of the world. All are saddened by her passing, but her memory endures, and her line goes on.

Mass of Christian Burial will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, Fr. David McCarthy, celebrant. Burial will be at the church cemetery. Friends may call on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Zak- Monbarren Funeral Home in Doylestown. Scripture service Friday at 5 p.m. (Zak-Monbarren, 330-658-2211.)